Chapter 5

Two stops and a couple bags of comfort food (what? I had to share with a man who had a hollow leg… or arm I suppose...) later, I pulled back into my parking lot. I was excited to see a parking spot close to the building available until I noticed the black porsche 911 Turbo also in the lot.

Fiddlesticks.

Grabbing all the bags quickly, I rushed out of the Jeep, barely stopping to lock it. I took the stairs to save time and was out of breath by the time I made it to my open apartment door.

I approached slowly and cautiously, relieved when I saw a lack of blood.

Of course, there were two men wearing ferocious looks on their faces, guns drawn as they stood across the room from each other.

"Okay, let's just cool it down a minute," I said.

Slowly I stepped into the apartment, and neither man so much as spared me a look.

Yeesh. Rude.

I waited a few seconds more, but neither man seemed willing to back down first. So what else was girl to do? I walked past Ranger who was just inside my front door. Halfway between the two men, I took a step sideways so that I was between them.

"Babe," Ranger said.

I couldn't see his expression because I had chosen to stay facing Bucky, but my guess was that he wasn't happy. Ranger didn't like it when I got in the way of him protecting me.

Probably Ranger had lowered his gun because I thought Bucky had relaxed ever so slightly. Bucky, however, had not lowered his gun. In fact, he raised it enough that I thought he had Ranger sighted above my shoulder now.

Ranger was only half a head taller than me, so it would be a tight shot, but then again, I could only assume he was able to make it.

Raising a hand slowly, I put it in the space the gun was pointing until Bucky finally lowered the gun. The look that crossed his face could only be described as exasperated.

"He broke in," Bucky said as though that explained everything.

"He does that a lot," I answered. "You get used to it."

Tension seemed high, so I stayed where I was but I turned sideways so I could look over at Ranger now. I made the turn slowly, watching Bucky out of the corner of my eye to make sure that his gun stayed pointed down. I wasn't expecting either of them to actually put their guns away for the time being.

Somehow I was still mostly being ignored, but I observed with interest as Ranger addressed Bucky, "you know who I am."

My head whipped over to Bucky so fast it was like I was watching a tennis match, but I didn't catch his nod.

"I know who you are," Ranger told Bucky after more silence.

I looked behind Ranger and saw that the door was still wide open. Thankfully my neighbors were all elderly so they weren't apt to wandering in and out at all hours. Still, it was dumb to tempt fate. I was pretty sure Bucky was in hiding.

"Well, I'm going to shut the door," I announced. "We probably don't want to have this conversation where others are so easily able to eavesdrop."

So saying I walked over and started shutting the door, gently hitting Ranger with it repeatedly until he finally said, "Babe," and stepped forward.

"Thank you!" I smiled sweetly at him.

Then I walked back over to where I had dropped the bags in the middle of the living room, but Bucky rushed forward and picked them up for me before I got there. He set them down in the kitchen then, much to my surprise, walked back over and retrieved his pack from where it was my living room.

He brought it back over to the kitchen table and sat with it at his feet, clearly not wanting Ranger able to get his hands on it.

I started unloading groceries onto the counter. Without asking either man if they wanted any, I pulled down two bowls.

Into the bottom of each bowl, I put a brownie. On top of that, I layered some chocolate chip cookies. Then I started scooping ice cream on top. I topped it off with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. From the drawer next to the sink, I pulled out two spoons and stuck them in each bowl.

Then I picked up the bowls and walked over to the table. I set one bowl down in an empty spot to Bucky's left and sat there. The second bowl I slid in front of Bucky.

"Babe," Ranger said.

I was pretty sure that one was a combination of "that stuff will kill you" because that's what he always said about sweets and "you're feeding this guy?"

I cut my eyes over to Ranger and through a full mouth said, "help yourself."

"Babe," Ranger said with a sigh. Then he took the seat across from Bucky and tensely sat down.

"He says that a lot," Bucky finally said.

I snorted into my bowl but just kept eating. Honestly, I'd gotten dessert because of the stress, and this little testosterone show down was not making me feel any less stressed.

I finished my bowl and sat eyeing it contemplatively.

If I was done, I'd have to talk probably. About things I didn't really want to talk about. If I had more, however, I could be happy.

Sure, the happy would be short lived, but it would be very real while it lasted.

Of course before any of this happened, I was having a hard time buttoning my pants. Turned out that mostly sitting on your ass for 6 weeks while healing from a broken leg wasn't great for the figure.

At least my leg wasn't broken anymore. Or something. I didn't have a cast on anymore and the hospital had found no signs of a break, and while I initially THOUGHT that was because it had just healed on its own, I was a little worried about other possibilities if I had been experimented on.

"Shit," I finally said.

"Care to share with the class?" Ranger said.

"I'm a disaster. No matter how hard I try to be a good bounty hunter, keep my head down, just do the job, weird shit always finds me! Why me?!" By the end I was practically yelling. Thankfully my arms weren't waving around.

Neither man said anything so I blew out a breath and added with a pout, "it was my father asking for my help! What was I supposed to do? Say no? It was my FATHER."

Ranger clearly sensed that I was on the verge of an emotional meltdown so he sidestepped the issue of my life on a whole and addressed Bucky instead, "you're the one who found her."

Bucky didn't answer. Of course, it really hadn't been a question. Instead, he stood and collected both his bowl and mine.

That horrible silence filled the apartment again and I listened to the sounds of Bucky washing the dishes then putting away all the groceries while I attempted to have a silent conversation with my eyes with Ranger.

I was trying to tell him to just drop it and leave, and he was telling me that I was crazy if I thought he would leave me with The Winter Soldier without more information than that.

"Why didn't you tell me who saved you?" Ranger finally asked me out loud.

I was pretty sure Bucky froze for a fraction of a second in the process of sitting down, but I didn't know him well enough to say for sure.

"You knew the whole time?" he asked gruffly. "Not just when you found me?"

I shrugged and said, "I read about you after the whole D.C. helicarrier fall of SHIELD thing. I was pretty sure I recognized the arm. Also you were my favorite Howling Commando in school."

I shit. I'd said that last part out loud.

Bucky leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest and smirked at that.

"Shut up," I told him. "Not like that. You were obviously no good. You just seemed like the most fun from the stories."

Ranger scoffed and said, "Morelli was no good. Good guys are not your type."

Left unspoken was the fact that Ranger wasn't a good guy either— at least not in the traditional sense.

"Low blow," I made a face at him and stuck my tongue out in retaliation.

Rangers eyes flashed hot, and I immediately thought places on Ranger that my tongue had been in the past. Places his tongue had been.

I flushed red and pulled my tongue back into my mouth, turning to face Bucky who was watching our interaction with interest.

"Plus, I watched all the senate hearings with the Black Widow," I added trying to get the conversation back on track.

Bucky stared at me blankly, so I added, "I thought she might be cooler than Wonder Woman."

"What?" He asked.

"I kind of always wanted to be Wonder Woman."

Bucky didn't really look like he knew what to say in response to that.

"Mostly I was just trying to keep Stevie out of trouble," he told me, and it took me a minute to realize that he was responding to me thinking he seemed like fun and a bit of a bad boy.

I mouthed "Stevie" to myself and felt my brain start to overheat trying to equate Captain America with "Stevie."

It did not compute.

I decided it was hopeless so instead I said to Ranger, "it didn't seem important, and I thought he might be a little bit wanted. Which is bullshit because none of that was his fault, so I figured that if I didn't tell anyone about him that was my way of thanking him for saving me. I didn't know I'd see him after."

"Why are you here?" Ranger asked Bucky at that.

Bucky shrugged, "I needed somewhere to stay for a few days so I could look into things further. I thought she'd be in the hospital a bit longer, and rumor had it she was living with the cop anyway."

"So you've already been here for two days?" Ranger asked.

Bucky inclined his head slightly in response.

A thought popped into my head and I narrowed my eyes at Bucky demanding, "was I one of the things you were looking into? Were you snooping?"

"Didn't need to, really," he said.

"What does that even mean?" I asked.

"It isn't difficult to get information on you. All I had to do was listen."

I blew out a breath. Stupid Trenton. Stupid Burg. Stupid gossips.

"I thought you didn't care about who had me; you were after someone else." I said, ignoring Ranger's stormy expression as he started wondering just how much I knew. "Why even bother finding out more about me? What else are you looking into?"

Bucky ran his fingers through his hair, "I wanted to figure out if you were still at risk," he finally said. "Already saved you once, it was going to be a waste of time and good ammunition if I had to do it again."

I gave him a death glare, "I can take care of myself."

The look I received in return clearly said that if that were true, he wouldn't have had to save me in the first place.

The conversation lapsed again for a few more minutes, until Ranger prompted Bucky with, "if you know who took her, tell me. I'll take care of this. You can go on your way."

Bucky visibly bristled at the dismissal, "I'm already on it," he told Ranger.

And now it was devolving into another pissing contest.

"Men!" I said throwing my hands up in disgust.

Ranger was apparently unwilling to drop it and said, "I'm sure you need to move on. After all, you want to make sure nobody finds out where you are."

Every inch of Bucky's body pulled tight at that. I couldn't tell if he was ready to fight or flee, but I was a little worried he'd shatter from the tension that filled his body.

"What is that supposed to mean?" I leaned over and poked Ranger with a finger. "You're not going to turn him in."

I was telling Ranger that, not asking, but he went blank face and didn't say anything more.

"Get out," I told Ranger.

Ranger looked at me in complete shock and he asked, "Babe?"

"I'm serious, Ranger," I told him standing up and pulling him up by his shirt.

Of course, I couldn't really move Ranger if he didn't want to be moved. He was letting me move him, which I continued to do. Right back to the door and out of it.

"This man saved my life," I said sternly. "You will not threaten him, and you will NOT turn him in."

Stepping back, I slammed the door in Ranger's face. Then I audibly clicked all the locks shut and slid the bolt back into place.

Of course, locks meant nothing to Ranger. He had a way with them. I'd yet to see a lock that could keep Ranger out. But it was the principle of the thing.

I turned back around saying, "I'm so sorry-"

I stopped short. The living room behind me was empty. No backpack, no stray items, no nothing. No sign that Bucky had ever been there.

I was pretty sure I knew what I would find, but I called out to Bucky anyway then when I got no response, I quickly checked to see if he was in my bedroom or bathroom.

I even looked in my closet.

No Bucky.

I walked back into the living room for a few moments and stood there, looking around, hands on hips.

Finally deciding that I wasn't going to get any more answers that night, I gave up and went back into the kitchen. I opened the freezer and pulled out the rest of a tub of ice cream glaring at the stack of money that was hidden behind it.

I went back to the couch I didn't recognize but hadn't had a chance to ask Bucky about and dug my spoon into the ice cream while turning on the TV.

What? Don't judge me. My life was a disaster, and who knew what was going to happen next. I was out of ideas of what to do for the rest of the day, I mean I had no real information to go on to try to figure out what happened to me.

Better to just relax, maybe go to sleep a little early. Maybe the answers would come to me in my dreams.

It was possible.

Crazier things had happened, after all.